Parties must unite to remove the taint of sleaze

By international standards, British politics is not very corrupt. But that should not be cause for much comfort. Voters do not calculate Britain's position relative to tinpot regimes when choosing their public servants. They judge what they see and, increasingly, what they see is sleaze.

It is nearly two years since the police first started investigating money and politics, then in the alleged exchange of cash for honours. Since then, a Prime Minister has been questioned by police, the Liberal Democrats' biggest single donor has been jailed for fraud and the Labour party treasurer and a cabinet minister have resigned over improprieties in the declaration of donations.

Then, last week, Conservative MP Derek Conway was revealed to have paid more than £40,000 of public money as a bogus salary to his son.

The sums involved in each case have been small by comparison with many commercial frauds and banana republic kleptocracies. But they are big enough that the average family takes note. Tens of thousands of pounds may be small change to a Robert Maxwell or a President Mobutu, but it is still a lot of money in Britain - a deposit on a house, a lifesaving operation, a pension. That, rather than the league table of global venality, is the perspective that MPs should keep in mind.

Offences of the type committed by Derek Conway are more egregious and easier to remedy than the arcana of party funding. There is no evidence yet that Labour donors received favours for their endorsements of deputy leadership candidates. Their money filled party coffers, not private pockets. By contrast, Mr Conway's family was visibly enriched from the public purse. Since MPs' expenses are taxpayer-funded, they should be as transparent as other parts of a politician's income.

Party leaders have already pledged, albeit vaguely, to work towards that goal. The question is whether they can rise above partisan rancour to achieve it. Their record leaves scant grounds for optimism.

In response to cash for honours, the Hayden Phillips review was set up to consider a new model for party funding. It published interim recommendations last year - a modest increase in state funding, tighter rules on donations, spending caps. It then abandoned its work after talks on a final settlement broke down in deadlock. The Conservatives wanted to disrupt Labour's subsidy from trade unions and Labour wanted to staunch the flow of cash from Tory financier Lord Ashcroft into marginal constituencies.

Since MPs could not agree to say anything in unison, they opted for a different kind of unity - solidarity in silence. David Cameron and Gordon Brown have shown unusual restraint at the dispatch box when their rival party has faced a money scandal. Neither wants to attract scrutiny of his own ranks.

That cautious complicity is a shabby substitute for bipartisanship. Both sides would surely prefer that debate hinges on matters of policy more than probity. But they will fail to get their ideas heard as long as the institution they sit in drifts into disrepute.

It is hard to lay claim to a distinctive set of policies when the public view is that politicians are 'all the same' and that the unifying characteristics are dishonesty, obfuscation and self-preservation.

The way to dispel that impression, paradoxically, is with a burst of collaborative enterprise. On funding, the parties must return to the negotiating table to agree a deal based on the Hayden Phillips framework. On expenses, they must vote on new guidelines based on maximum transparency - all claims logged in a register and open to public scrutiny.

Most MPs can legitimately claim to be honest public servants, but if they fail to put their house in order, they will all stand guilty of moral complacency.

That is not the same as sleaze, but it is a form of corruption none the less.